SurveyMonkey taps JPMorgan to lead IPO: sources

(Reuters) - U.S. online survey company SurveyMonkey Inc has hired investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) to help lead preparations for an initial public offering (IPO) that could come later this year, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The IPO would come four years after the company’s last private fundraising round gave it a $2 billion valuation. Founded in 1999, SurveyMonkey had been apprehensive about going public as other technology IPOs failed to beat their private valuations in the last few years.

SurveyMonkey’s plans are subject to market conditions and the timing of the IPO is not certain, the sources said this week, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

San Mateo, California-based SurveyMonkey and JPMorgan declined to comment.

With many technology firms having opted to stay private for longer, companies are now tapping into pent-up investor demand for high-growth stocks to diversify from the so-called FANG group comprised of Facebook Inc (FB.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) and Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O).

Spotify Technology SA (SPOT.N) and Dropbox Inc (DBX.O) went public earlier this year in splashy stock market listings, while the likes of electronic signature service DocuSign Inc (DOCU.O) and cloud-based security firm Zscaler Inc (ZS.O) also had successful market debuts.

SurveyMonkey Chief Executive Zander Lurie told HuffPost in 2016 that the company would generate roughly $200 million in revenue, with profit margins in the mid-30s percent range.

The company was previously run by Dave Goldberg, the husband of Facebook Inc (FB.O) Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who died unexpectedly in 2015.

SurveyMonkey says around 3 million people use its survey platform each day. It has a so-called ‘freemium’ business model, whereby users can collect a capped number of responses to up to ten questions, with the option of paying for additional services.